1. Field
The present aspects relate to wireless communication devices, and more particularly, to apparatus and methods for generating performance measurements in wireless networks.
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication; for instance, voice and/or data can be provided via such wireless communication systems. A typical wireless communication system, or network, can provide multiple users access to one or more shared resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, etc.). For instance, a system can use a variety of multiple access techniques such as Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Code Division Multiplexing (CDM), Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), and others.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems can contemporaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Each mobile device can communicate with one or more network elements (e.g. base stations) via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from base stations to mobile devices, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from mobile devices to base stations.
Wireless communication systems oftentimes employ one or more base stations that provide a coverage area. A typical base station can transmit multiple data streams for broadcast, multicast and/or unicast services, wherein a data stream may be a stream of data that can be of independent reception interest to a mobile device. A mobile device within the coverage area of such base station can be employed to receive one, more than one, or all the data streams carried by the composite stream. Likewise, a mobile device can transmit data to the base station or another mobile device.
Position determination within a wireless communication system enables a location for user equipment (e.g., mobile device, mobile communication apparatus, cellular device, smartphone, etc.) to be defined. In some aspects, a network can request or page the user equipment (UE), which can respond with such UE location information. This enables the location of the UE to be communicated and updated to the network.
Optimization of network coverage and service quality is a constant goal for wireless network operators. Superior coverage and service quality results in enhanced user experiences, greater throughput, and ultimately increased revenue. Network optimization conventionally requires measurements of network coverage and service quality as input. In the context of traditional network optimization, these measurements have been collected via data collection efforts performed manually across a network coverage area.
As manual collection can be costly and labor intensive, there have been ongoing efforts to provide for network self-optimization. Automation of measurement collection represents a crucial aspect of these efforts. Reporting by a UE may provide an important tool for automation of data collection. However, the volume of data that would need to be reported by the UEs to allow for network optimization calculations creates substantial difficulties for the network with electronic storage space and backhaul bandwidth. Consequently, it would be desirable to have a method and/or apparatus for collection of network measurements from one or more UEs but does not require substantial investment in backhaul bandwidth and electronic storage space in the network.